S3\ 



MENTICULTURE 



AND 



AaRICULTURE: 



OR, 



WHAT OUR SCHOOLS SHOULD DO FOR AGRICULTURE. 



By R. G. NORTHROP, 

Secretary of the Co/inecticut Board of Education. 



[From the Report of the Connecticut Board of Education.] 



NEW HAVEN: 

TUTTLK, MO 11 E no US K & TAYLOR, PRINTERS. 

1881. 



MENTICULTURE 



AND 



AGRICULTURE: 



OR, 



WHAT OUR SCHOOLS SHOULD DO FOR AGRICULTURE. 



By B/G. NORTHROP, 

Secretary of the Connecticut Board of Education. 



[From the Report op the Connecticut Board of Education.] 



NEW HAVEN: 

TUTTLK, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR, PRINTERS. 

1881. 



M 



nm u\^!cii 



CONTENTS. 



Farming the leading business of the country, ... - 3 

Education elevates and improves labor, .... 4 

Common English branches the first essentials, .... 5 

Reading and farming, ...-.-- 6 
Arithmetic and farming, .....--6 

Habits and observations of farming, . . - . - 7 

Dignity of labor, - . - - - - - - - 10 

Labor as an educator, - - - - - - - 11 

The Hebrew Theory and Practice, ------ 12 

Agriculture and the practical sciences, ----- 17 

Farming and botany — " How plants grow," - - / - - 3 7 

Farming and forestry, - - - - - - - 18 

The farmers' homes, -------- 20 

The education for those who are going to be farmers, - - - 21 

Shade Trees along the highways, - - - - - - 28 

Constitution of a Rural Improvement Association, - - - 29 



WHAT OUR SCHOOLS SHOULD DO FOR 
AGRICULTURE.* 

Fanning is tlie leading and most essential bnsiness of tlie 
country, occupying more than three-fourths of our laboring 
population. It is the basis of the wealth, prosperity and 
power of the American people. Its depreciation would de- 
moralize the nation. It was the original, divinely appointed 
calling of man. God planted a garden in Eden and made 
it man's first duty to " dress and keep it." When driven from 
Eden, it was still his mission to " till the ground from whence 
he was taken and to eat bread in the sweat of his face." The 
Creator plainly intended that Agriculture should be the groimd- 
work of civilized society, the basis of all .progress. On its 
prosperity hang the hopes of the race, far more than on any 
other calling. It must provide the means of sustaining an in- 
creasing population, or there can be no growth. Commerce 
and manufactures depend upon it more than it does upon 
them. In the words of Webster, " they all stand together like 
pillars in a clunter, the largest in the center, and that largest is 
Agriculture." For an interest so broad and vital to the pros- 
perity of the whole country, oiir schools should accomplish the 
best possible results. 

Now that slavery is abolished, we have no vestige of a caste 
system in America. Labor is honorable, and the laborer is 
honored. The most popular rallying cry to help a candidate 
for the highest office, is some term which affiliates him with 
farmers or other workmen, like " the rail-splitter " or " the 
tow-path boy." In contrast with the distinct classes and hered- 
itary nobilities of the old world, it is our proud national char- 
acteristic, that we are a working people ; that he is the noblest 
who works most and best for the general weal, and that the 
cause of the workman is recognized as the cause of all. The 

* Given as the opening address before the State Agricultural Convention at 
New Britain, December 15, 1880. 
a2 



4 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

best way to elevate farming is to elevate the farmer. The peo- 
ple are learning that mere muscle is weak, and that brains help 
the hands in all work ; that knowledge and skill multiply the 
value and productive power of muscular efforts. Whatever 
the chemical analyses of our Experiment Station may show, 
the best of all fertilizers is brains. In farming as everywhere, 
if knowledge is power, ignorance is impotence. What a man 
is, stamps an impress upon what he does, on the farm or in the 
shop. The style of the work depends on the character of the 
workman. Whatever elevates the farmer ultimately improves 
his farming. Whatever degrades the farmer at once depre- 
ciates his work. The wealth and welfare of individuals and 
communities, always deijendent on labor, can be most fully 
secured only by educated labor. You can dignify farming in 
no way so surely as by educating and thus elevating the farmer. 
As mind triumphs over matter, the amount of manual labor 
requisite to secure equal results constantly lessens. Tlie future 
improvement of farming depends on brain as well as brawn. 
The progress of civilization has always Ijeen commensurate 
with man's dominion over nature and his utilization of her 
forces and resources. " Subdue the earth and have dominion 
over it," was the primeval command. We gain that dominion 
over nature just in proportion as we discover and obey her 
laws. In struggles for material success, he wins who best 
wields physical forces. 

To enable our schools to accomplish better results for Agri- 
culture, I invite our farmers to do more for the schools, and 
especially to visit them. We need a still higher appreciation 
of them and a more active and intelligent interest in their im- 
provement. Apathy on the part of parents would neutralize 
the efforts of the best teachers. The character of the schools 
in every place must answer to the local public sentiment. You 
stimulate public interest by improving the schools no more 
surely than you improve the schools by elevating public opin- 
ion. The Legislature alone cannot create good schools. Right 
laws may accomplish much, but the people, once in earnest, 
will do more. In our I'ural districts no class can so effectually 
advance this great interest of the people as the farmers. 

The most essential service our Public Schools can render for 



OUE SCHOOLS AND AGKICULTURE. 5 

Agriculture, is to give all onr youth a thorough training in the 
common English l)ranehes. Tliese lay the foundation for suc- 
cess in all after work, whether on the farm, in the shop, or 
store. The point of greatest weakness even in our colleges is 
found in the deticiency of their candidates in tlie elementary 
branches. Thoroughness here at the outset means thorough- 
ness everywhere. The habits of accuracy, of application, of 
self-control, and self-reliance in overcoming difficulties early 
formed in school, constitute the best preparation for the farm 
and all other callings of life. Far more thought and time and 
drill should be given to these simj^le elements. Rightly taught, 
they provide the truest discipline for the juvenile mind and 
form the best basis for all future acquisitions. When we 
build the superstructure without a firm foundation, all is inse- 
cure. The first effort of the school is to lay the ground work 
broad and strong. That done, and you create the desire and 
the skill to build up the edifice ; that done and school is a wel- 
come place, and study becomes a pleasure ; that done and there 
follows such a hungering for knowledge that when one's school 
days are ended, he realizes that his education is but just begun, 
and for the rest, it shall be the aim and pleasure of his life to 
educate himself. Even though the milking may summon him 
early in the morning and the chores detain him late at night, he 
will seek time and find time for the cherished work of self- 
impro'' ement. Place him where you will, let his work press as 
it may, he will find leisure for reading, and occupy rainy days, 
the long winter evenings, and all intervals of labor in efforts 
for self-improvement. Even the odd moments thus utilized, in 
the end yield a large reward. The habit of utilizing these odd 
moments and thus learning how to economize time as well as 
money, has most important moral bearings. The boy who 
thus early learns that " life is real, life is earnest," and makes 
the most of each passing hour, is gaining self-command and 
self-respect, high aims and purposes that lift him above tempta- 
tion and give him the true farmer's self -poise and conscious in- 
dependence. 

To secure the best results for our farmers, I would advocate 
giving greater prominence to reading^ which I have long re- 
garded as by far the most important study taught in our 



6 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

schools. This is the surest way to the mastery of all higher 
studies. Early proficiency here, fosters a fondness for hooks, 
while aversion to study often springs from tasking youth in 
severer branches before they can read fluently. Let a child early 
learn to read with facility and, as I have aimed to show in 
another connection, he has the key by which he can open 
any door in the temple of science. Isolated as the farmer's 
homes necessarily are, to a great extent, reading should be 
made the never failing attraction of the long winter evenings. 
But when it is a toilsome process to spell out the words, there 
can be little pleasure in reading, or interest in the narrative. 
It is the duty or rather the privilege of the farmer to see to it 
that liis children are liberally supplied with attractive and 
wholesome reading, whether by the purchase, or exchange of 
books, or by reading clubs, or by a town or district library. 
Whenever its importance is duly felt, some method of gaining 
the proper supply will be devised. 

For the best results to our farmers and to all industrial 
classes, less time should be given to the complex puzzles of 
arithmetic and more to the simple ground rules. Master addi- 
tion, subtraction, multiplication, division, per-centage, and the 
keeping of accounts and the rest which is of practical value is 
easily and quickly gained. Our arithmetics are too volumin- 
ous. Let there be more drill in rapid mental combinations 
and practical methods and principles and less study of abstruse 
processes. Such topics as alligation medial and alteriiate, and 
commutation of radix and others as intricate and useless, may 
well be omitted in a common school course. These and kin- 
dred topics never applied in ordinary business fill a large space 
in the arithmetics and waste much precious time of the pupils. 
They have the sanction of tradition rather than of common 
sense. In continuing them, teachers and authors have con- 
sulted usage more than utility. Like the titled scions of rank 
in the old world, they have come down by so long a literary 
descent, that no one disputes their right to their honored 
place. "Worth more than all these obsolete processes, is the 
thorough mastery of the ground rules. Rapid mental combi- 
nations should be daily practiced till pupils can add, multijily 
and divide with the utmost rapidity and accuracy. The art of 



OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 7 

arithmetic will thus be mastered though the profundities of 
the science be not explored, Ex-President Thomas Hill of 
Harvard College, himself an eminent mathematician, strongly 
condemns the common practice of stujoefying and disgusting 
pupils with premature attempts to understand arithmetic as a 
science, while as a consequence they fail to acquire facility in 
it as an art. Life is not long enough to spend so much time 
on the intricacies of compound proportion, permutation and 
the like, that not one in a thousand ever applies in business. 

The public school should train our youth in habits of ob- 
servation, which is the prime secret of success in farming and 
forms the true basis of all higher education. The child's in- 
tellectual life begins with impressions from the senses, which 
are the windows of the soul. The noblest of these and the 
royal avenue to the mind is the eye. This sense-education, 
commences in the cradle and should continue through life. 
Hence " things before names, ideas before words," and in higher 
stages, " principles and ])rocesses before rules" should be the 
motto. Too often the teacher begins with books and continues 
with books only, teaching that which is impractical if not in- 
comprehensible to the neglect of things nearest at hand, things 
most interesting, suggestive and useful, God designed nature 
to be the earliest and most constant teacher of the juvenile 
ndud, and has made ol)jects and events the leading instruments 
of developing its faculties. Invaluable as are books, they are 
but the art of man, while nature is the art of God. It is 
therefore a narrow view of education that makes books its 
only instruments. Every device should be employed to foster 
a love of nature and form habits of careful observation of com- 
mon things. The organs of sense, when not early trained, be- 
come rigid and unimpressible. The teacher who relies upon 
the text-book alone is more than three thousand years behind 
Job, whose maxims deserve a place in the most modern didac- 
tics. "Ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee and the 
fowls of the air and they shall tell thee ; or speak to the 
earth and it shall teach thee ; and the fishes of the sea shall de- 
clare unto thee." Such a teacher forgets the motto of the 
wise man who said, " Go to the ant thou sluggard ; consider 
her ways and be wise," or that of the Great Teacher who said, 

A3 



8 OUB SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

" Consider the lilies of the field how thej grow," and " Be- 
hold the fowls of the air," Milton well says : " To know those 
things which about us lie, in the daily life is the prime wis- 
dom." 

I commend to our farmers' boys the advice given to youth 
bv Hugh Miller : " Learn to make a right use of your eyes, the 
commonest things are worth looking at, even stones, weeds 
and the most familiar animals. One of the best schools I ever 
attended was the miscellany of objects and circumstances sur- 
rounding me in my native district, challenging the first exer- 
cise of my senses and fancy, and this is a species of education 
open to all." True, but how few are open to it. How many 
go through the world practically blindfolded. Under the lead 
of his Uncle Sandy the keen-eyed harness-maker, Hugh Miller 
while a boy, had observed carefully the rocks, rains, tides, 
trees, ferns, shell-fish, sea-fowl and insects along the rocky 
shore of his native Cromarty. "While working seventeen 
years as stone mason in the quarries or sheds, he studied the 
stones he was hammering and thus became the most eminent 
geologist of his age. So in general, the most distinguished 
men of all ages and countries have been close students of 
nature and observers of common things. 

I have emphasized this subject because the careful observa- 
tion of nature's processes is specially essential to the success of 
the farmer. Unless acquired early, the habit is not likely to be 
ever formed. This work cannot be done by jDroxy. The 
judgment of the farmer must be based on his personal obser- 
vations. Indispensable as is the knowledge gained from books, 
its use and application depend on one's own study of things. 
The failures of fancy farmers come from following book theo- 
ries without that adaptation to changed local conditions which 
personal observation and experience alone can suggest. Hence, 
both in the family and school, curiosity should be so stimu- 
lated as to prompt an insatiable desire for that knowledge 
which comes through the senses when trained in observing the 
qualities of connnon things. Curiosity, or what is kindred, 
love of knowledge, is one of the strongest natural desires of 
the child. Though too often dwarfed by our blundering, 
when the senses are sharpened, it is one of the most vital 



OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. • 9 

forces in education, becoming tlie parent of perception and 
attention, of memory, imagination and expression. It pre- 
pares tlie soil and fertilizes the seeds of truth. A farmer 
might as well sow a field without plowing as a teacher in- 
struct pupils in whose minds no love of knowledge has been 
awakened. Strong in childhood, it should grow with years and 
attainments. Though at first a restless instinct, it should 
mature into a ruling passion. Curiosity is to the mind what 
appetite is to the body. It creates a hungering for knowledge 
which is the mind's food. Love of truth was as strong a pas- 
sion with !N^ewton or Agassiz as love of conquest with Napo- 
leon. Under its healthful inspiration, study is a pleasure — 
without it a task ; the dullest drudgery, " a weariness of the 
llesh." Curiosity is the primal desire to which the child's 
nature resj)onds ; it is the impelling power to which genius, 
when enriched with the treasures of science, is most suscepti- 
ble. The amplest supplies only add fuel to the flame. Instead 
of surfeit, there comes an intenser craving for more. Each 
new attainment gives strength and stimulus for higher acqui- 
sitions. 

To show how susceptible is the plastic mind of child- 
hood when consciously brought into contact and sympathy 
with nature, by a teacher competent to be her interpreter, I 
mention two out of a multitude of similar illustrations. An 
eminent botanist narrated to me the following personal inci- 
dent : " When I was a mere boy, my teacher handed me a 
flower, asking me to notice all its parts, and when I had done 
so for the first time in my life, he gave their several botanic 
names, introducing each with its Saxon synonym, which I 
never forgot. That brief talk of twenty minutes inspired me 
with an interest in observation and study that led to collegiate 
culture." Said another gentleman, author of popular text- 
books on Il^atural History, " My teacher once invited me to 
search on my father's farm for curious stones. I found a white 
stone with sharp edges, of which he said, that is a good sjjeci- 
men, though very common, for three-quarters of the earth's 
crust is made up of this stone. It is very useful. The grains 
and grasses get the sharpness and strength of their stalks from 
a minute poi-tion of this stone which the rootlets dissolve and 



10 . OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

send lip for their growtli. It is useful in the. arts. You have 
it also in the wall and in common plaster. Glass is made 
of it, oidy a little stuff is mixed with it to make it work well, 
and the very best spectacle glasses are made of pure specimens 
of stone like this, showing me a pure quartz crystal, and point- 
ing out its exact hexagonal form and pyramidal cap. That 
brief talk changed my history and iij-ed my mind with love of 
learning." 

The farmers' boys have the best opportunities of learning 
these practical lessons from nature, provided the tedcher is com- 
petent to start him in the right lines of observation. On the 
farm, birds, inse(;ts, fishes and all animals, flowers and foliage, 
plants, shrubs, creeping vines and trees, to say nothing of the 
minerals under his feet, are all practical primary teachers. 

In the interests of Agriculture and all industrial pursuits, 
our youth should be taught at school the necessity of labor, it& 
vital relation to all human excellence and progress, the evils of 
indolence and the absurdity of the common aversion to manual 
labor. This popular distaste for industrial pursuits should be 
early counteracted and the silly and pernicious notions that 
labor is menial, and that the tools of the farm or of a trade are 
badges of servility should be refuted in our schools, and more 
should there be said and done to dignify labor and render in- 
dustrial pursuits attractive and reputable. The Agricultural, 
Forestral and Industrial Schools, so numerous in Gennany, 
Switzerland and other portions of Europe, have proved as effi- 
cient in dignifying labor as in increasing its efficiency and 
market value. Girls, as well as boys, are there early taught, 
both in the family and school, that to learn to be useful is alike 
their duty, privilege and interest. 

Many of our youth are afflicted with an ambition for easier 
lives and more genteel employments, and with the infatuation, 
that city clerkshijjs are the most eligible positions, while farm- 
ing and the trades are not " respectable." Let them learn that 
the intelligent farmers or mechanics have a better chance of 
securing wealth, health and influence, than the over-crowded 
city clerkships can afford. In any average farming commu- 
nity, let twenty young men form a stay-at-home association and 
employ their best skill in rural pursuits ; and another twenty. 



OUE SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 11 

we will suppose of tlie same capacity and education, start in 
quest of city clerlcships, and, at the end of twenty years, I am 
confident our stay-at-liomes would, on the average, have better 
health, better characters, greater influence and more money 
than the twenty who turned their backs on the humble indus- 
tries of the country. 

Clerks are often paid less than skillful mechanics, and are less 
independent. In their precarious positions, they are liable to 
disappointments and humiliating struggles with the thousands 
of others " looking for a place." Every advertisement for a 
clerk brings a whole swarm of applicants. How pitiable the 
condition of this superabundance of book-keepers and ex- 
changers wasting their lives waiting for a place, while our 
farms and factories, railroads and trades, are clamoring for 
•educated superintendents, foremen, engineers, skillful mana- 
gers and " cunning workmen." The position of the educated 
and well-trained farmer or mechanic is far preferable to that of 
average city clerks. The latter may dress better, talk more 
glibly, bow more gracefully, not to say obsequiously, but they 
compare unfavorably with our best farmers and mechanics in 
manly independence, vigor of thought and strength of char- 
acter. 

Too many of our young men leave the homestead on adven- 
tures less safe and reliable than the arts of industry. A good 
trade is more honorable and remunerative than peddling maps, 
books, pictures, patent-rights and clothes-wringers, or in a city 
store to be cash or errand boy, store-sweeper, fire-kindler or 
€ven book-keeper. Without in any way disparaging the useful 
position of the clerk, our young men may properly be cau- 
tioned against further crowding this already plethoric profes- 
sion. To the boys in the country I say, instead of aspiring to 
an uncertain and precarious clerkship, stick to the farm or learn 
a trade, and you will lay the broadest foundation for prosperity. 

The value of work as an educator hitherto too little appre- 
ciated, needs to be taught in our schools. Children learn by 
doing. This principle underlies the whole Kindergarten sys- 
tem. Its prime motto is, " Do nothing for the child which he 
can be encouraged to do for himself." His planning, combin- 
ing, constructing and designing, with simplest materials, foster 



12 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

interest and skill in work. It would be a grand achievement if 
the Public Schools should lead our youth to realize that their 
education is essentially deficient until they have learned to work 
in some useful form of industry. Such was the theory and 
practice of the ancient Hebrews, carrying out the i)lan given 
them from heaven. That is plainly the Divine plan for the 
race. The Hebrews held that all children should be taught 
some handicraft as an essential part of education. Among 
them labor was always honorable. 'No man was ashamed of 
his trade. No matter what his rank, every one must be trained 
to work. The chief of the Apostles did not degrade his high 
office by occasionally resuming his trade of tent-maker. By 
his own example, he enforced his precept, " if any would not 
work, neither should he eat," and sharpened his censure of 
" the disorderly busy-bodies working not at all." His associates 
never suspected that their old business of fishermen was disrep- 
utable. AVhy was it that the Great Teacher, when all possi- 
bilities were open to his choice, sought out the humble home of 
the carpenter and worked patiently at His reputed father's 
trade, except that He might condemn before the world the un- 
christian and heathenish notion that labor is menial. On the 
other hand, the Chinese Mandarins who let their nails grow as 
long as their fingers, to show that they never work, are the 
illustrious predecessors of the pretentious snobs who affect to- 
despise the industrial arts. 

The Jews still maintain their ancestral pride and faith in 
work. Notwithstanding long ages of bitter persecution, they 
are, as a race, most remarkable for perseverance, energy and 
ability. These manly traits have been fostered by their heredi- 
tary habits of industry. Debarred by oppressive laws for 
many centuries from the ownership of land, and from the 
ordinary industrial pursuits, they were driven to trade, which 
naturally continues to be their leading occupation, and in 
which they have gained marked success by dint of indomita- 
ble energy in the face iof opposition and manifold difficulties. 
In his own life as well as in Endymion, Beaconsfield has strongly 
illustrated the power of an indomitable will. In every country,, 
where the civil disabilities which oppressed them for so numy 
centuries have been removed, the Jews have soon risen to be 



OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 13 

leaders in education, in tlie press, in finance, in science and lite- 
rature. Their wonderful ability and success seem to be the 
secret of the new and strange outburst of medieval intolerance 
and hostility which now disgraces Germany. The real trouble 
is, that the Jews so often outstrip their rivals and win the prizes 
which are open to fair competition. Complaints made in late 
German periodicals fully betray this unworthy motive. The 
outcry is, " The Jews are monopolizing the best positions in the 
Universities, absorbing millions of money, controlling ex- 
change, becoming our leading capitalists and even crowding 
into Parliament, and in danger of moulding the destinies of 
the nation." 

It is a redeeming feature of this outburst of narrowness 
that the Crown Prince, who himself once thoroughly learned 
a trade, denounces the present persecution of the Jews as 
"a shame to Germany." No man in Germany has done 
more than he to make labor reputable. He has practiced 
as well as preached the gospel of work, having early learned 
the cabinet-maker's trade. At Babelsberg, near Potsdam, 
the summer palace of the Emperor of Germany, are shown 
choicest articles of furniture made by him. When his only 
sister, the Grand Duchess of Baden, placed her daughter in 
the schloss, a famous school in Carlsruhe, she directed that 
she should be excused from none of the household industries 
required of the other pupils, that she should be trained in 
sewing and knitting, and made as thorough a seamstress as if 
she were expecting to earn her livelihood by her needle. 
Such royal examples of honoring industry have exerted a 
vast influence throughout the German Empire. 

The tendency on the farm has been to overwork the boys 
and allow too little respite for play, for, with the young of all 
animals, play is the dictate of nature. The earth, the air and 
sea are full of animals who seem to luxuriate in playful activ- 
ity. But, while all work and no play represses the jubilant im- 
pulses of childhood, the tendency of omx times to all play and 
no work is far more harmful. Excessive amusements dissipate 
the mind, weaken the will and demoralize the whole character — 
making one restless, selfish, discontented and dependent. The 
habitual idler naturally degenerates into something worse, for 



14 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

idleness and vice are twins. Labor, tliougli called the curse 
and consequence of sin, may be a blessing to beings constituted 
as we are. We need the spur of necessity to energize our 
minds. Our richest thoughts and experience, and our best dis- 
cipline, come to us when we are intensely active. Toils and 
privations even, give strength, endurance and courage for 
future achievements. The successful merchant who, with a 
fortune, retires from business, and sits down to enjoy himself 
with nothing to do but take his comfort, becomes the victim of 
ennui, if not of dyspepsia. Industry is essential to thrift and 
virtue, to mental, moral and physical health. The devil 
tempts every body, but the idler tempts the devil, who gives 
plenty of work to all whom he can find with nothing to do. 
The historian Froude well says, " There are but three ways of 
living ; by working, by begging, or by stealing ; those who do 
not work, disguise it in whatever pretty language we please, 
are doing one of the other two." Every man should have one 
vocation, and as many avocations as he can. Men of mark are 
men of work. The most industrious individuals and races are 
the most intelligent and powerful ; the most elevated morally 
as well as mentally. In whatever laud man can subsist in in- 
dolence, he droops in intellect, and there is the greatest demor- 
alization in those tropical climates where leisure rather than 
labor is the rule of life. Man rises in the scale where his 
necessities compel constant industry, as he sinks where his 
wants exact no labor. Where industry becomes habitual and 
skillful, it not only supplies mere necessities, but stimulates 
demands above absolute wants. Every pure enjoyment gained 
by labor, prompts the desire for other and higher gratifications. 
Theodore Parker said, "The fine arts do not interest me so 
much as the coarse arts, which feed, clothe, house, and comfort a 
people. I should rather be a great man as Franklin, than a 
Michael Angelo ; nay, if I had a son, I should rather see him a 
mechanic who organized use, like the late George Stephenson, 
in England, than a great painter like Rubens, who only copied 
beauty." Edward Forbes says, " He who knows not what it is 
to labor, knows not what it is to enjoy." 

I once began a census of the eminent men of Connecticut, 
those who have been most successful in business, or in the 



OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 15 

Tarions professions, and found that the great majority of tliem 
had the discipline of rural occupations in their youth. The 
successive governors of our State, for a long time, with a 
single exception, were early accustomed to manual lahor. The 
town of Lebanon has raised up five governors. Many retired 
rural districts and hill towns have been fertile in the richest 
treasures of intellect. The Litchfield County Jubilee showed 
a proud array of her sons among the most distinguished men of 
our country. On the other hand, those who despised labor in 
their youth have not been the l)enefactors of the comnnmity 
nor of themselves. " The artificers and inventors of the 
world, the men who revolutionize human industry and mani- 
fold the wealth and powder of nations by new machines and 
new processes of art — the Watts, the Arkwrights, the Bra- 
mahs, the Clements, the ISTasmyths, the Stephensons, the Fair- 
bairns, the Fultons, the Ericsons, the Goodyears, the Howes, 
the McCormicks, have usually had their training on the farm 
or in the shops," 

A striking illustration of the value of work as an educator 
has been recently furnished by Kev. Washington Gladden, of 
Springtield. He sent a circular to one hundred of the most 
prominent men of that place, asking, " Was your home during 
the first fifteen years of your life on the farm or in the city, 
and were you then accustomed to work when not in school ?" 
Of the eighty-eight who replied, five only " had nothing par- 
ticular to do," while ninety-four per cent, were farmers' sons, 
or hard working boys. So everywhere, as he clearly shows, 
the prizes of life are carried off by the men who learned to 
work. Men energized by such discipline are sure to outstrip 
those who were dandled in the lap of affluence and enervated 
by excessive indulgence. The farmer's boy learns patience and 
persistence by doing tough tasks without flinching. Mr. Glad- 
den's conclusion from his inquiry was, that the boy early 
trained to work has eighteen chances of succeeding in life to 
one chance for the boy without this discipline. 

Farm work, by the great variety of its forms and conditions, 
is peculiarly fitted to task and test the mind of a boy in plan- 
ning, contriving and adapting means to ends under constantly 
varying circumstances. The necessities of the farm teach the 



16 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

needful lesson that "where there is a will there is a way.'* 
Coleridge said, " A perfectly educated character is little else 
than a perfectly disciplined will." The will is by no means 
the only faculty to be educated, but its right culture involves 
that of every other faculty of the mind and heart. It is the 
will that differentiates men. This is the regal power of the 
mind, and more than any thing in our intellectual nature con- 
stitutes the man. A disciplined will equijDS the mind for ac- 
tion. An earnest will is the agent of every great achievement. 
There is nothing like it to make the mind resolute and success- 
ful, loyal to duty, superior to doubt, disdainful of ease, delight- 
ing in achievement, and rendering toil, self-denial, exertions in 
whatever form, easy and pleasant. A resolute mind will scorn 
sloth, love labor, spare no effort, neglect no opj^ortunity to 
accomplish its end. 

Labor develops inventive talent. The exigences of the 
farmer, remote from villages and shops, compel him to be 
sometliing of a carpenter, joiner, blacksmith and harness- 
maker — a man of all work — " handy at anything." His busi- 
ness varies with the seasons and sometimes changes every day. 
A farmer's boy myself, early trained in practical industry and 
familiar with farm work, I have ever valued highly those prac- 
tical lessons learned among the rough hills of grand old Litch- 
field County. 

I counsel even the sons of affluence to spend at least one 
season at hard work on the farm or in the shop. The practical 
business drill there gained, the knowledge of nature and 
domestic animals, will amply compensate for the consequent 
loss in book learning, to say nothing of the health and jjhysical 
training thus secured, AVith all our improved gynmastics, 
none is better than manual labor, when it is clieerfully and in- 
telligently performed, and especially farm work. The habits 
of industry, once formed on the farm, or in the shop, may 
shape all the future, teaching one to value time, to husband the 
odd moments, and to practice diligence in business.. 

The pu])ils who luxuriate in the wealthiest homes of the 
city would profit by one year in the country M'itli its peculiar 
work and play, its freer sports and wider range for rambles by 
the springs and Ijrooks, the rivers and waterfalls, the ponds and 



OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. IT 

lakes, over the hills and planes, through the groves and forests ; 
in observing nature, searching for wild flowers and curious 
stones, learning to recognize the different trees by any one of 
their distinctive marks, viz., the leaf, flower, fruit, form, bark 
and grain, watching the ant-hills, collecting butterflies and vari- 
ous insects, noticing the birds so as to distinguish them by 
their beaks or claws, their size, form, plumage, flight or song. 
Studying nature in any one or more of these varied forms, 
each so fitted to charm children, would refresh their minds as 
well as re-create their bodies. 

The simple elements of the practical sciences should be 
taught in our schools, at least in oral lessons. A few talks on 
Agricultural Chemistry, will invite its fuller study when the 
school days are ended, especially in observing the chemical 
marvels that will meet one on every rod of his farm. The 
lectures given in our Teachers' Institutes on the geological 
characteristics of Connecticut, show how profitably our teach- 
ers might each give simple lessons on the prominent physical 
features of his town, county and State. Such talks will inten- 
sify the interest of the farmers' boys in the study of the stones 
and rocks which line their pathway. Specimens of our most 
common minerals ought to be in all our schools, procurable as 
they are by any competent teacher, without cost. ISTo pupil 
should leave the Public School without knowing the names 
and leading characteristics of at least a dozen of our common 
minerals. 

Familiar lessons should also be given about plants and 
animals, the laws of health and animal physiology. A few 
hints on "how plants grow," will add interest to the fiora 
found in such great varieties on every farm. With specimens 
in hand, a few minutes devoted to pointing out the difference 
between inside growers and outside growers (saying nothing of 
endogens and exogens) or between parallel-veined and net- 
veined leaves, or the evergreens and those trees which drop 
their leaves annually, will awaken a lasting interest in the 
study of Botany. How early children may learn the differ- 
ence between the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, or 
that some animals have jointed back bones, that others have 
their bones outside of their bodies, while others have none at 



18 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

all. Such glimpses of the beauties and wonders of science 
awaken a healthful desire to observe and study. I remember 
well the interest awakened at a Teachers' Institute in Massa- 
chusetts, when Prof. Agassiz gave a lecture on the grasshopper. 
Having by the aid of the boys collected several hundred grass- 
lio])])ers and etherized them so that they would not jump 
about, he passed one to each of his auditors. This created 
general laughter and seemed ridiculous to man}'. But soon, 
instead of laughing at or looking at him, every one was looking 
intently at the ol)ject in hand. When he pointed out minute 
parts some one said, " Can't see them ;" to which he replied, 
" Look again and learn to lool^ for I can see things ten times 
snuiUer than those to which I have called your attention. The 
power of the human eye is very great, and it is only the want 
of practice which sets such narrow limits to its powers. By 
learning how to examine one thing thoroughly, you learn how 
to see any thing. I present this subject to you, teachers, for 
the purpose of suggesting the desirableness and method of 
teaching Natural History in schools, and of using that instruc- 
tion as a means of developing the juvenile faculties and lead- 
ing them to the knowledge of the Creator." 

If you ask where can teachers be found competent to give 
such lessons, I invite you to visit our Normal School and 
observe how well its pupils are trained in the methods of 
teaching the elements of the practical sciences in our schools, 
and I ask the cooperation of the farmers in securing better 
qualiiied teachers for their children. 

By leading children to plant flowers, shrubs and trees in 
the school grounds, as well as around the homestead, and by 
brief lessons on rural art, and especially on the beauty, variety 
and value of trees, such an interest in their study and culture 
might be awakened as to make our youth practical arborists. 
Very little time would be required for those talks which would 
be sure to inspire an interest in arboriculture and in the 
broader subject of rural art and adornment. In this way our 
Public Schools may ])rove a partial substitute for the schools of 
Forestry in (Tcrinany and other European countries, which 
have exerted there a remarkal)]e influeuce in diifusing a general 
interest in arboriculture among the people. They regard for- 



OUE SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 19 

ests as their friends, and understand tlieir climatic influence and 
economic value in staying spring torrents, jDreventing summer 
droughts as well as in supplying lumber and fuel. The Ger- 
mans have a passion for nature, and love to frequent their 
beautiful groves and gardens, for parks and woods abound in 
and near their cities and towns. The rural and suburban 
adornment, now the pride and glory of so many beautiful 
towns in Germany, and the fruit of this revived love of arbori- 
culture, is largely due to the influence and literature which 
have emanated from her schools of Forestry. Hence a deep 
and general interest has been awakened in trees and forests and 
the wanton forest fires so common and destructive in America 
are comparatively unknown in Germany. The forest incendiary 
would be regarded as a common enemy, like the poisoner of an 
aqueduct, recklessly destroying that which it is the interest of 
all to preserve. Like their Forest Schools, our Public Schools 
should create that healthful public sentiment which constitutes 
the best possible protection of the woods. 

In connection with the Sheflield Scientific School, which by 
the act of the Legislature in 1863 became the College of Agri- 
culture and the Mechanic Arts of Connecticut, the endow- 
ment of one or two additional professorships would inaugurate 
a Department of Forestry. This could be done the more 
economically here, where' the existing cabinets, laboratoi^ies 
and philosophical apparatus might be utilized in forestral in- 
struction. The endowment of such a department would 
prove a great benefaction to the State and to the country, 
opening new fields of investigation which would bear directly 
on the ultimate resources and permanent prosperity of the 
nation. The conclusions of foreign foresters, though con- 
firmed by the broadest observations and experience in Europe, 
cannot all be wisely adopted in American Sylviculture. Dif- 
ferences in soil, climate and other conditions, may affect trees 
in regard to rapidity of growth, health, durability of timber, 
texture, elasticity and grain of the wood and many other qual- 
ities. These vital questions can be determined only by careful 
investigations carried on in each country. 

The Lombardy poplar, for example, was planted extensively 
in New England many years ago. Brought to England from 



20 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

the banks of the Po in 1758, the facility of its propagation from 
cuttings, its rapid growth, its tall columnar outline in contrast 
with the spreading oaks and elms, soon made it a favorite in 
England, hence with the fathers of New England. Sending 
out its almost upright branches all along its tall stem, it was 
much admired here, as it is still by the Italians and was of old 
by the Eomans, who called it the arhor ^opiili. But in New 
England so many of its brandies winter-killed that it soon 
became an unsightly collection of dead limbs, and it is now 
seldom seen. This is one of many illustrations of the necessity 
of adaptation to soil and climate, and of the fact that some 
trees which thrive in one locality will fail in another. 

More than those of other workmen, the farmer's business 
binds him to his home. lie lives on or near the soil he tills. 
Hence the farmer's home must often be somewhat isolated. 
To promote sociality and content. Col. Wa)'ing proposes that 
farmers should concenti-ate in villages, and for tliis purpose 
submit to the necessity of long daily journeys to their farms. 
This is unfortunately the Euro])ean usage. There the cottages 
of the peasants are often crowded togethei" more closely than are 
the homes in any well laid-out city, leaving scant room for out- 
l)uildings, to say nothing of gardens. This custom grew out of 
the necessities of a barbarous age as a protection from robbers, 
or out of that feudal system under which the serfs were crowded 
into huts under the castle Avails of their lord or chief. 

The very isolation of the American farmer is one source of 
his conscious individuality, independence and strength, when 
he is thus led to greater care and taste in adorning his home 
and grounds and increasing the attractions of the fireside. It 
has long been my am])ition to improve the homes and home- 
life of our farmers, and of all our industrial classes, and help 
them realize that the highest privilege and central duty of life 
is the creation of happy homes. The chief aim of the indus- 
tries of life, whether agricultural, manufacturing or commer- 
cial, and the great end for which government itself is worthy 
to be maintained, is that men may live in ha])py homes. " The 
hope of America is the homes of America," and the ho]>e of 
Connecticut is the homes of Connecticut, You improve the 
schools by improving the homes as truly as you improve the 



OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE, 21 

homes by improving the schools. Modern civilization relates 
esj)ecially to the homes and social life of the people, to their 
health, comfort, thrift, their intellectual and moral advance- 
ment. In earlier times and other lands, men were counted in 
the aggregate. They were valued as they helped to swell the 
revenues or retinues of kings and nobles. The government 
was the unit, and each individual only added one to the roll of 
serfs or soldiers. With us the individual is the unit, and the 
government is of the people and for the peojDle and by the 
people. America may be brought to be the paradise of the 
laborer in the neatness, comforts, amenities and attractions of his 
home. In no other way can the best interests of this nation 
be more surely promoted than by the elevation and ennobling of 
its home life, and no agency can contibute to this grand achieve- 
ment 80 universally and effectually as our public schools. 



[Since the foregoing was in type, I have received a paper 
from M. H. Buckhan, President of the University of Ver- 
mont, on the question, "What kind of an education shall 
we give those of our children who are going to be farmers," 
which is so sound, practical and suggestive as to well merit 
re-printing entire in this connection. My limits will permit 
only the following condensed summary of its leading thoughts.] 

I shall ask and answer the question as though it was a personal 
concern of my own : " What sort of an education shall I give 
to a child of mine who is going to be a farmer ?" So you will 
get my best and sincerest thoughts on the subject. I will 
suppose that I have a boy who is going to be a farmer, calling 
him George, which is a good farmer's name, inasmuch as the 
word itself means farmer. The question then is, how shall I 
educate George ? Now, although I should very much like to 
have one of my boys become a farmer, becaus'e I believe that a 
farmer's life may be as honorable, happy and useful as any life, 
I have no means of knowing that George will actually be a 
farmer. ' I have no right arbitrarily to choose my boys' occiqDa- 
tions for them any more than I have to choose their wives for 
them. The system of caste which requires that every boy 
should follow his father's occupation, is tyrannous and cruel. 
But in this free age and land, one of the best opportunities a 
young man has is the opportunity of freely choosing his own 
calling among all those open to honorable ambition. A good 



22 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

deal is said against academies and colleges on the ground that 
they " educate young men away from the farm. I know a 
man who says : ''I want my boy to be a farmer. If I send liim 
off to school, he will get weaned from the farm and go into 
some profession. I will give him just a good common school 
education ; that is all that a farmer needs. Then he wall stay 
at home and be a farmer." But one of the rights which God 
gave that boy was the right to make the most of himself in any 
sphere of life which he might freely choose. And yet the father, 
who ought to be his best helper, robs him of that right, and 
says, virtually, " I will fix it so that he will never have a chance 
to choose any calling and will never know that the chance 
w^as taken away from him." Why, if all farmers' sons were to 
become farmers, what would become of the ])rofessions, and of 
the world 'i Go through all the callings of life and pick out the 
most capable men in them, the greatest lawyers, statesmen, 
preachers, physicians, teachers, inventors, the men who are 
doing the greatest service to mankind, and you will find that 
the great mijority of them came from the farm. Young men 
are constantly going from the farm to caiTy fresh vigor into 
other vocations, and others are constantly coming back from 
the professions to renew their exhausted vitality by restoring 
their connection with old mother earth. It is a strange thing 
to say, but I really think it needs to be said to the fathers — 
though perhaps not to the mothers : " Don't be jealous of 
your boys : don't grudge them a chance to rise ; give them an 
opportunity to be something besides farmers if they want to be." 
But George says he wants to be a farmer — just as "Willie has 
decided to l)e a lawyer, Tom a physician, and Jack a locomotive 
engineer. George is only a boy. Ilis notion of being a fanner 
is only a little boy's fancy. He may change his mind many 
times before he becomes a man. The smallest possible reason 
for fixing a man's career is a boy's w^him — and any preference 
of a boy of ten or twelve can be little more than a whim. But 
cannot a wise parent or teacher discover a boy's talents and 
aptitudes and so reveal to him the career for which he is fitted 
and persuade him to follow it '( I answer, only in the case of 
some very renuirkable boy who, like Pascal or Mozart, early 
shows the unmistakable call of Providence in very marked 
talents. The ordinary boy's capacities do not appear until edu- 
cation has brought them out, and often not even then, not 
until practical life has tested them. George may be a farmer, 
but he may not be. For the present, then, it is very ]>lain that 
I must not educate liim as though T knew he was going to be 
a farmer, except so far as that education would be eciually good 
for any other calling. But fortunately the groundwork and rudi- 
ments of all education are the same. I will, then, give him a 



OUE SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTUEE. 23 

good elementary education. J^ow that means a good deal. 
Yerj few boys get a good elementary education. 

Shall I send my boy to the public schools, where I cannot 
have my way about his studies, or shall I if I am able, put him 
in a private school where I can, to some extent, prescribe the 
course he shall pursued I will put George into the public 
schools on account of the healthful stimulus which publicity 
and free competition gives to the schools, but I will use my 
utmost influence to make them as good as they can be made. I 
will, so far as I am able, see to it that the buildings, the furni- 
ture, the ap])aratus, and above all the teachers are the best that 
my district, my village or town can be persuaded to provide. I 
will tax myself and do my utmost to persuade my neighbors to 
tax themselves enough to maintain the very best school we can 
afford. 

But George's education does not depend on the school alone. 
It is very important that he should form the habit of reading 
good books. But I cannot afford to buy him all the books he 
will need ; he must have access to a good library. I must there- 
fore stir up my neighbors to start a village or town library. I 
will take good sterling newspapers, both religious and secular. 

]^ow, if I have done my duty and he has done his, at fifteen 
years of age, the boy has got an education which is not to be 
despised. If he makes the most of it hereafter, extending his 
information by reading, using his opportunities to profit by 
intercourse with superior men, above all putting thought and 
plan into his business, and so being constantly educated by it, 
he may become a man of fair intelligence, competent to do the 
duties of a man in the humbler walks of life. If he have 
unusual native j30wer of mind, he may do much more than this. 
Such a mind will often burst through the limits which beset 
half -trained minds of ordinary capacity and find or make itself 
a way to knowledge and power. These are the few cases which 
mislead the popular judgment. Because here and there one, 
rarely gifted, most rarely gifted with that indomitable perse- 
verance which makes light of toils which would kill ordinary 
men, rises to eminence without the direct help of academies 
and colleges, it is inferred that ordinary men, of average talents, 
with moderate education, may do the same. But George is an 
ordinary boy. The question now is, shall he go on with his edu- 
cation ? shall he go for some years to the high school or academy ? 
The result of much thought on that question is, he shall go, if 
I can afford it. I will scrimp, if I must, somewhere else, not 
here. I will get up an hour earlier or work an hour later at 
night, if I must, so that George may have a good education. 

Of course all farmers cannot be thoroughly educated men. 
In the present state of things few can aspire to that luxury. 



24 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

So far as concerns the great mass of farmers' sons my work is 
mainly done in nrfjing them np to a good elementary and 
English high school education. I should like to have George 
hecome a thoronghly educated man, farmer or no farmer, and 
if a good deal of exertion and sacrifice on my part Avill make 
that possihle, he shall he. But most lives are suhjected to 
limitations. If the way to that seems to be shut against 
him, he must make the most of the opportunities Providence 
gives him, and even so may enjoy a great many of the pleasures 
and sains which onlv the highly educated man eniovs in the 
fullest measure. 

It is not necessary now to go on and discuss the question 
whetlier George shall go to college, because the principles al- 
ready settled in my OAvn mind will lead me to desire that he 
should go, if circumstances permit. I refuse to allow that the 
probability of his being a farmer will make any difference in 
the question. I can see no good reason why I should favor the 
boy who is going to be a lawyer or a physician, over his brother 
who is going to be a farmer, by sending the one to college and 
not the other. It would be just as unfair as to leave twice as 
nmch of my property to the one as the other. The farmer 
needs the education as much, and can make as good use of it, 
as the lawyer, I admit that the probability of his actually be- 
coming a farmer grows less the more education you give him, 
and that simply l)ecause his education has given him the power 
to ijain more of the desirable thino-s of life with less work in 
some other way than by farming. But as the professions be- 
come more crowded, and competition grows fiercer, and as 
farming becomes less an operation of mere manual labor, and 
more one of skill and contrivance, more educated men will he 
attracted to agriculture, and education will become more and 
more the road to success and enjoyment in this as in all other 
pursuits. 

My general principle is this, that before we come to the 
special education which shall fit one to become a farmer, a pro- 
fessional man, or whatever else, we will give him as extended 
and liberal on education as the circumstances will admit ; the 
more, the l)etter; the more thorough and scholarly, the better; 
the more varied, the better, provided each part be thorough ; 
the more extended, the better, certainly up to the time of liis 
majority, or even a year or two beyond. How much education 
it is in the power oi a farmer to give to his boys, will depend 
on how high a value he sets on education, and how and)itiou6 
they are to get it. If from that small, stony New llanqishire 
farm, Ezekiel and Daniel AVebster could find their way to 
college, the same faith and heroism in father and mother and 
boys, could make the way to college possible — it is not neces- 
sary that it be made easy — from almost any farm. 



OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 2^ 

But lias George done nothing but study all these years ? Has 
his life been all books, books, study, study, and nothing else ? 
Not so, if I am a wise father. The number of hours in a day, 
the number of days in a year, that can be profitably devoted to 
pure mental activity, without exhaustion to the mind and a 
strain upon the body, ai^e fewer than we think them to be : sit 
down and calculate them, and see how large a margin we have 
left for other occupations. And besides, an important part of 
education has to do with matters that books and school teachers 
have no concern with, the training of eye, ear, hand, muscles ; 
the development of the body to strength and agility ; acquiring 
knowledge of common things, and getting, little by little, com- 
mon sense ; in short, that education by work, and experience, 
and responsibility, through which boys become vigorous, know- 
ing, capable in practical affairs, 'Now in this part of education 
farmers have a great advantage over most others in the man- 
agement of their boys. There is always something at hand for 
boys to do in the time not required for study. A farmer's boy 
learns to be industrious, handy, thrifty ; he gets a vast amount 
of knowledge by dealing with stones, trees, horses, cattle, birds, 
bees, grasses, grains, fruits, wind, weather, country stores, ped- 
dlers; he has a thousand opportunites for getting varied 
knowledge which the village boy lacks. He has work entrusted 
to him, and gets independence and manliness through the sense 
of responsibility. 

I am thoroughly convinced that every bOy should be trained 
to some kind of industry — I do not mean a mere amateur, half ■ 
work, half-play kind of employment, but to some one of the 
great, necessary, bread-winning industries of mankind. Good 
health, good habits, right notions of life, can be secured to boys 
so effectually in no other way. The notion which village boys 
are getting, that going to school five hours a day, f o^ five days 
in the week, for nine months in the year, exempts them from 
work for all the rest of the time, breeds habits of idleness and self- 
indulgence, which result in wasted and vicious lives. How to 
give to village boys the employment which they need, is a hard 
problem, which is now occupying the attention of thoughtful 
men. But fortunately for you, it is not your problem. The 
chances are all in your favor that your boy will learn industry, 
economy, the value of time, and most of the essential, if homely, 
virtues, through the experiences of life on the farm. 

But sooner or later George must make his choice of a calling, 
and we will assume that he chooses to be a farmer. He has 
good reasons for his choice, and he chooses for those reasons, 
and not from necessity or whim. Because farming is an active, 
out-door, healthful emplo}aiient ; because it is an honorable and 
useful calling ; because it insures a competency and holds out 



2i] OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 

the prospect of a moderate and comfortable degree of wealth ; 
and because it gives opportunity for the exercise of all the 
virtues, the cultivation of all the graces and the enjoyment of 
all the substantial comforts of life — he deliberately makes up 
his mind to be a farmer. He has already done much in the 
way of preparation for his life work. He has got considerable 
training of muscles, of sense, of mind. And now, just as a 
well-educated young man turns his attention to the law, or to 
medicine, or divinity, he applies himi^elf to the study of agri- 
culture. He is not intending to be a gentleman farmer, but is 
going into the business for the ]nirj)ose of making a living. 
What, then, shall his special education for farming be? 

Agriculture though not a science, but an art, is surrounded 
by sciences which throw light upon it. And if we might call 
an art liberal in proportion to its affiliation to science, then agri- 
culture is the most liberal of all the arts, for it is allied to more 
sciences than any other. Step out upon your land and pick up 
a handful of soil, and before yon can answer all the questions 
which that soil puts to you, you must know something of Min- 
eralogy, and Organic and Inorganic Chemistry. Stoop down 
and detach a single blade of grass with its roots, and you have in 
your hand all the essential data of the problem which that most 
interesting and wonderful science of Botany is called to solve, 
(/rawling about under your feet, humming around your ears, 
infestiug the plant you have in your hand, disputing with you 
the possession of the air you are about to take into your lungs, 
are living creatures whose structure, habits and relations to 
other organic life form the science of Entomology, which is 
only one departuient of the vast science of Zoology, which 
treats of all animate beings on the earth and in the air and in 
the sea. Every plant that grows on your farm, every animal 
in the stack-yard, every bird and insect that hovers in the air, 
every implement of hus])andry, every road, fence, di'ain, farm- 
building, every running stream, swamp, muck-bed, forest, every 
change of temperature, rain storm, drought, every bare rock 
u])heaved to the sun — everything, in short, that the farmer's eje 
rests upon or his ear hears as he looks and listens by day or by 
night, represents to him a science which lies very close to his 
woi-k and which it is his interest to know. Indeed, it would 
be difficult to name a science in all the circle of them, which 
does not bear, immediately or remotely, on agriculture. George 
has learned something of these sciences in his general training, 
but he ])ursues them now not for the ]nirposes of training but 
for knowledge. He has learned the fundamental ]irinci])les of 
(Chemistry, Botany and Physiology ; he should now pursue 
tliem into those details which touch the operations of farming. 
He studies Chemistry as related to soils and the food of plants ; 



OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 27 

Botany as related to seeds, growth, propagation, hybridizing, 
grafting, irrigating, pruning ; Physiology as related to the 
care and feeding of animals, breeding, fattening. His studies 
must now be real, connected with actual things, not mere 
pictures and illustrations of things. 

But where shall George learn the practical part of farming? 
Certainly not from books or lectures or from any instructions 
of men themselves inexperienced, but on the farm, in the 
actual operations of bona tide farming. Experimental farming, 
amateur farming, fancy farming are all instructive, and I should 
wish to have George keep a shrewd eye on all innovations and 
be ready to learn the lesson which they have to teach. But 
the kind of farming from which a boy learns most is farming 
pursued as a business, and for the purpose of making a living. 
When George has finished his scientific studies, or while he is 
pursuing them if it can be arranged that he can study winters 
and work summers, I should like to put him to work on some 
well managed farm, where he will see and share in all the ope- 
rations of a diversified agriculture. This is the practice pur- 
sued in some parts of the world where agriculture reaches its 
highest perfection, in the south of Scotland, for instance. 
There the lads who are going to be head farmers or stewards 
are first thoroughly educated in the schools and are then sent 
to spend a few years with a " scientific farmer," as he is there 
called ; that is, a practical farmer who understands all branches 
of the business and has in operation on his farm, usually a large 
one, all the most approved methods. There he serves a sort of 
apprenticeship, giving his labor for the instruction he receives. 
Possibly some modification of this plan will be found to work 
with the farms attached to the agricultural colleges, so that they 
can be at once models for instruction and remunerative, or, at 
least, self-paying, as farms. But farming can be learned no 
where but on a farm. A learner must for a time be an appren- 
tice, either to some one else or to himself. However wise he 
may be in the theory and principles of agriculture, he will be a 
bungler and a loser till he gain skill by exj^erience. 

I know too well what answer many will make to all this : 
"The education you describe is something very fine, but it 
would turn our children into gentlemen and ladies, whom we 
might have the privilege of w^aiting on. Education weans 
boys from the love of work, and our boys must work, as we 
did. Your scheme is not practical. It may do for the sons of 
a few rich farmers, but the majority of boys are better off with 
a good common education and plenty of work." Are the far- 
mers of Vermont, then, a peasant class, to whom education is 
to be denied, and denied by themselves, lest it lift them out of 
the station in which it has pleased Providence to place them ? 



28 SHADE TREES ALONG THE HIGHWAYS. 

Is education somethine too good for tliem, something fit for 
their betters, but not for them ? I have not read aright the 
liistory of Vermont if any such spirit as this is native to tlie 
soiL I believe that notliing God has to bestow on his most 
favored cliildren is any too good for Vennonters, or for farmers ? 
If education will make gentlemen and ladies of our children — 
and education and religion certainly will — there is no place 
where true gentlemen and ladies have abetter right to live and 
reign and mu]tii)ly their kind than on the farms and in the homes 
of V ermont. And if there is any good thing in life M'hich we 
failed to get for ourselves because we came too early in the 
course of human progress, let us do all we can to secure it for 
our sons and daughters. There was one in history who thought 
it more glory to be a king-maker than a king. Let the farmer 
who is uneducated himself, and has felt his deiiciences, get his 
compensation in giving superior advantages to his children. 



SHADE TREES ALONG THE HIGHWAYS. 

The following law to encourage the planting of trees on the 
public roads has just been enacted : 

Section 1. Every person planting, protecting and cultivating forest trees for 
three years, one quarter mile or more, along any public highway, shall be entitled 
to receive for ten years thereafter, an annual bounty of one dollar for each quarter 
mile, so planted and cvdtivated. to bo paid out of the state treasury: but such 
bounty shall not be paid any longer than such line of trees is maintained. 

Sec. 2. The forest trees named in Sec. 1st shall include the elm, maple, tulip, 
ash, basswood, oak, black walnut and hickory. 

Sec. 3. Elms not to be more than sixty feet apart, and the others not more 
than thirty feet apart. 

Sec. 4. This act shall take effect from its passage. 

Nothing can add so much to the be^ity and attractiveness 
of our country roads as long avenues of fine trees. One sees 
this illustrated in many countries in Europe, where for hun- 
dreds of miles on a stretch the road is lined with trees. "With 
the liberal encouragement offered by this new law, no time 
should be lost in securing the same grand attraction to the 
highways of (Connecticut, (irowing on land otherwise running 
to waste, such trees would yield most satisfactory returns. The 
shade and beauty would be grateful to every traveler, but 
doubly so to the owner and planter, as the happy experience 
of hundreds of our fanners can now testify, for a ground work 
in this direction is already well started. llaving in abundance 
the best trees for the roadside, no class can contribute so much 
to tlie adornment of our ])ublie roads as the farmers. In 
portions of (iermany, the law formerly required every land- 
holder to ])lant trees along his road frontage. Happy would 
it be for us if the sovereigns of our soil would each make such 
a law for himself. 



EUEAL IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION. 29 



CONSTITUTION OF A KURAL IMPROVEMENT 
ASSOCIATION. 

As plans for Rural Improvement are often called for and as 
our farmers have been specially active in tliis good work, the 
following regulations and by-laws for such an association are 
here given. The conditions of membership may properly vary 
with the wealth and liberality of each community. Some associ- 
ations fix the terms of membership at one, two, three and even 
five dollars annually, while others make them low enough to 
invite the cooperation of all classes. 

1. This Association shall be called " The Rural Improve- 
ment Association of ." 

2. The object of this Association shall be to cultivate public 
spirit, promote good fellowship, quicken the intellectual life of 
the people, secure public health by better sanitary conditions 
in our homes and surroundings, improve our streets, roads, road- 
sides, side- walks, public pounds, protect natural scenery, re- 
move nuisances, provide drinking troughs, break out paths 
through the snow, and in general to build up and beautify the 
whole town, and so enhance the value of its property and render 
it a still more inviting place of residence. 

3. The officers of this Association shall consist of a President, 
a Yice-President, a Treasurer, a Secretary, and an Executive 
Committee of fifteen, six of whom shall be ladies. 

4. It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to make 
all contracts, employ all laborers, expend all money, and super- 
intend all improvements made by the Association. They shall 
hold meetings monthly from April to October in each year, 
and as much oftener as they may deem expedient. 

5. Every person who shall plant three trees by the road-side, 
under the direction of the Executive Committee, or pay three 
dollars in one year or one dollar annually, and obligate himself 
or herself to pay the same annually for three years, shall be a 
member of this Association. 



30 RURAL IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION. 

6. The payment of ten dollars annually for three years, or of 
twenty-five dollars in one sum shall constitute one a life mem- 
ber of this Association. 

7. Five nieiubers of the Executive Committee present at any 
meeting shall constitute a quorum. 

8. No debt shall be contracted by the Executive Committee 
beyond the amount of available means within their control, and 
no member of the Association shall be liable for any debt of the 
Association, beyond the amount of his or her subscription. 

9. The Executive Committee shall call an annual meeting, 
giving due notice of the same, for the election of officers of 
this Association, and at said meeting shall make a detailed 
report of all moneys received and expended during the year, 
the number of trees planted under their direction, and the 
number planted by individuals, length of sidewalks made or 
repaired, and the doings of the Committee in general. 

10. This Constitution may be amended at any annual meeting 
by a two-thirds vote of the members present and voting. 



UBRARY OF CONGRESS 






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